Amid strong opposition protests demanding transparency in the recent elections in Venezuela, With strong allegations of fraud, the president Nicolas Maduro He assured that he is preparing two maximum security prisons for protesters arrested during mass marches.
“I am preparing two prisons that I must have ready in 15 days, they are already being repaired,” he said. Ripe in an event broadcast by the state channel VTV.
“All the guarimberos (protesters) are going to Tocorón and Tocuyito, maximum security prisons“, he warned in relation to two penalties that were there for years under the control of criminal gangs until they were occupied by law enforcement last year.
More than 1,200 people arrested for protests in Venezuela
After learning the election results, which declared Maduro the winner with the 51.2% of the votesthousands of people filled the streets across the country denouncing fraud and demanding that the minutes be published. The demonstrations, which suffered strong police repression, left a balance of 1,200 arrested, at least 11 dead and dozens injured. The opposition, for its part, claims that there have already been more than 20 deaths.
“We have more than 1,200 captured and we are looking for 1,000 more and We’re going to catch them all“because they were trained in the United States, in Texas, in Colombia, in Peru and in Chile,” said the president, under strong international pressure for more transparency in the vote count.
He also called the protesters “terrorists”, “criminals” and members of “new generation gangs” which he compared to gangs in Haiti and the Central American gangs.
“They wanted to turn Venezuela into another Haiti“, the president said. “There is a lot of work to be done, they should go and build roads,” he added about the “re-education” that will be implemented in these prisons.
The opposition demands
From the opposite side, the opposition, led by María Corina Machado and her candidate, Edmundo González Urrutiathey denounce a “cruel and repressive escalation of the regime.”
“The State Security Forces They have killed at least 20 Venezuelansimprisoned for more than 1,000 and caused eleven forced disappearances at the protests. Most of our team is in hiding,” Machado said in a post in The Wall Street Journal. “I could be captured as I write these words.”
Amid the protests, skirmishes broke out in which statues of the late former president Hugo Chavez were torn down, as were some of the huge billboards with Maduro’s face that line avenues throughout the country.
Source: Ambito
